Last night, I attended a 3 hour seminar on “Protecting God’s Children” at my church. This is required for all volunteers/workers who have contact with children. During the class, we saw a video in which 3 victims and 2 offenders were interviewed. One of the offender’s 
preferred victims were children between the age of 5 and 10 years old. This instantly got my mind 3 ½ years into the future and imagine my son in this situation. I’m horrified, saddened, shocked, and this got me taking notes during the presentation fully intending to share the information with you all – the Minti community.
This subject is also something that hits close to home. I was almost abused in my teens. I was touched, but unlike the children on the videos I saw last night, I didn’t “shut down”. My mind flew into action and I stopped it.
SOME FACTS:
- Sexual offenders are often known to the family, and not strangers. Abusers can be a man, a woman, or even a child - yes, a child. The offender on the video started sexually abusing others at the age of 10.
- Sexual offenders are not homosexuals. Do not let your guard down because someone is not gay, vice versa, do not accuse someone just because he/she is gay.
- Children do not lie about being sexually abused.
- Only 5% of kids lie about the abuse, which means 95% are true.
STEPS TO PREVENT SEXUAL ABUSE
1. Know the Warning Signs
Look for signs that someone may be an offender. In cases of reported sexual abuse, some parents step forward and say, yes, they knew there was something wrong with him/her. So what are some of these signs?
· Likes spending time with children all the time.
· More comfortable with children than adults.
· Discourages other adults from getting involved.
· Keeps children alone.
· Excessive touching (tickling/wrestling).
· Gives gifts without the parents’ permission and gives gifts that are often prohibited by the parents. (e.g. video games).
· Showing/providing pornographic materials to children.
NOTE that any ONE of these signs may be apparent and will not likely indicate that a person is a likely abuser. These signs should be looked at together. We do not want to be out there on a witch-hunt.
2. Control Access
Be aware of the people that have access to your children. Get to know the teachers at school, the volunteers in the church nursery, the sports coaches, family friends. Talk to them. Often times, parents get a nagging feeling about someone and this may be enough of a trigger for you to check more on that person.
3. Monitor Activities Involving Children
What this means is that as a parent, make sure that there are always 2 unrelated adults in any of your children’s activities. Sexual abuse occur in privacy. If there is never an opportunity for a child to be alone with an adult, then there is no opportunity for the sexual abuse. If your child is going to a field trip, there should be more than 1 adult at all times. One of the sexual offenders on the video shown during the seminar said that he used to be a softball coach. And that most parents just dropped the kids off leaving him alone with the children. He also mentioned that he kept an album full of kid’s pictures and only 1 parent asked for the negatives of his/her child’s pictures.
It is important to get to know the people that have access to our children. Sometimes a simple 5 minute chat on a few of the activities are often enough to get an impression.
4. Be Aware
Be aware of what going on with our children: know where they are, who they’re with. Talk and most importantly, listen. Sometimes it’s not what the children say, but how they say things that may alert us to something that is wrong. Some children don’t talk, so it’s important in this case to watch body language.
For young children, teach them about their body parts (with proper names). Teach them that the body parts that are covered by bathing suits are covered for a reason – they are private. If someone does touch any of the private parts, to teach the children to say “NO, get away from me” and then run away to tell another adult about it. Sexual offenders “groom” potential victims. This means that they do a little touching and see if the child protests and if the child doesn’t, the offender proceeds to the next step. If the child does protest, the offender will usually move on to the next victim.
5. Communicate Concerns
If we see something inappropriate about a person with contact to children, it is our duty as parents to communicate this concern. Talk to the principal, supervisor…whoever is directly above that person of concern. If we can’t get answers, go up to the next person in the chain of command. A person may not be a sexual offender, giving the information to professionals will allow them to investigate for themselves.
In the U.S., there are mandated reporters – this means that doctors, teachers, certain child care providers are required by law to report any suspicion of child abuse. They do not have to be able to prove the abuse.
NOTE: All the information here is from my own notes. My note-taking ability is not the best, so please visit the external links I’ve provided below for more information.
Copyright © 2006, username: Izzy @ www.minti.com. All rights in all media reserved. The content of this article may be forwarded in full without special permission provided it is used for nonprofit purposes and full attribution and copyright notice are given.
(August 2006) (
